Firewalla Gold SE: How to Flash Installer Image

Reminder: after resetting or flashing a new image, you will need to pair with your unit again (https://firewalla.com/install). Your old Firewalla icon will not work.

This tutorial explains how to flash the image of Firewalla Gold SE boxes.

• To flash other boxes in the Gold series, see this guide. 
• To flash Purple series boxes, see this guide.
• To flash Firewalla Red, Blue, and Blue Plus boxes, see this guide.

In case anything goes wrong and the "reset to factory default" does not work, here is how to recover: 

Step 1: Prepare the installer Image

• Do not delete or unpair the previous instance in your Firewalla mobile app. You can restore configurations from it later using the Migration feature.
  
  
• Download the Firewalla Gold Series installer image:
  • Download link: gse-install-0.0705.img.gz (Ubuntu 22.04 LTS)
  • MD5sum: d6287d0c291738d3895af3006d70e16e
    sha256: 8b1e28b7cf2b3d971af986ffcb70d1c0f52ec56336e6464d0ef34bf543a0d87d
    
    
• Download a flash program. We use etcher.io in this example.
  Note: if the etcher doesn't work on macOS Catalina (10.15), please see below for a workaround. 
  
  
• Launch the etcher and select the image you've downloaded before.
  
  
• You will need a MicroSD Card (with at least 16 GB disk space) (not included with a Firewalla Gold SE). 
  
  
• Reformat the MicroSD card to wipe out any data. 
  
  
• Insert the MicroSD Card into a Card reader and plug it into your computer, then select it as the flash target. (If your computer has a built-in SD card slot, you can insert the card into your computer directly.)
  
  
• Select Flash! 
  
  
• After flashing, unplug the SD Card Reader from your computer, and eject the MicroSD card from the reader.

Step 2: Install the Image on your Gold SE

1. If you have an SD Card installed on GSE before, please eject it.
2. Power off the Firewalla Gold SE (you can just unplug the power cable from the box) and insert the SD Card into the SD card slot (Insert the SD Card with the brand and text side facing up. You will feel a little click when it's inserted well).
3. Power cycle the Gold SE (unplug the power cable and plug it back in) to start flashing it. You may connect a display monitor via the HDMI port to monitor the flashing process.
4. Wait for the installation process to complete. 
   

   Status Light	Process
   Blinking Blue	Installing
   Blinking Red	Verifying
   Solid Red	Fail
   Solid Blue	Success

5. If flashing fails, the status light will be solid red. 
   In case of failure, if a monitor has been connected via HDMI, you may take a photo of the screen output and submit it with a support case.
6. Once you see the status light is solid blue, the flashing process is completed successfully. Unplug the power cable to power off the box, then remove the SD card by pushing it gently. 
7. Plug the power cable back in and follow the installation guide to configure your Gold SE in whichever mode you have selected.

Step 3: Restoring Configuration

When installing the new version, the iOS app will use "Quick Setup" to restore the previous network configuration.

Then please use Settings -> Advanced -> Migrate from other boxes to restore rules and device names after installation. See the tutorial on how to migrate: How to migrate data from one Firewalla Box to another? Note: please do not unpair the old box before the migration. Just use the USB to flash, install, and migrate. After migration, you can tap and hold on to the previous Firewalla Icon, and tap "unpair" to remove the previous pairing.

How to flash image file to USB drive via Linux command line (Warning, Pro users only)

# Make sure the device file is the device file of the USB drive, flashing to the wrong device file may cause unexpected data loss
gunzip -c <image_file> | sudo dd of=<usb device file> bs=32M status=progress

# Example
gunzip -c gse-install-0.0705.img.gz | sudo dd of=/dev/sdc bs=32M status=progress

Known Issues

1. Etcher prompts for user confirmation before flashing on Windows 10

Solution: Start Etcher with administrative privilege

2. Etcher fails to start flashing in MacOS

Solution: Unmount auto-mounted partitions from the USB drive by running the following commands in Terminal

x=$(diskutil list | awk '/external/ {print $1}')
sudo umount ${x}s1 ${x}s2

3. Etcher doesn't work on MacOS Catalina (10.15)

Solution: Here is an open issue on the GitHub etcher project to track this: https://github.com/balena-io/etcher/issues/2833

 Here is a workaround you can use before etcher fixes this issue.

sudo /Applications/balenaEtcher.app/Contents/MacOS/balenaEtcher